An oil pipeline linking Kazakhstan and the Russian Black Sea coast has been officially opened in the southern Russian port city of Novorossiisk.

The pipeline has been financed by a consortium including the American, Russian and Kazakh governments and could provide twenty million tonnes of oil a year by 2002.

American companies have invested more than one billion dollars in the project.

A BBC correspondent says the opening of the pipeline - the first to be completed since the collapse of the Soviet Union - is being seen as a symbol of better relations between Moscow and Washington. The US had been promoting pipelines that avoid Russian territory.